


The Scourge and the Blue Spirit

by MetellaStella



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Imprisonment, Suspense, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-24 18:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14959739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetellaStella/pseuds/MetellaStella
Summary: Years ago, Zuko captured the Avatar. He, Lieutenant Jee, and his crew sailed back to the Fire Nation. Now he is in hiding in enemy country. Things get a whole lot worse when he meets a dangerous adversary.





	1. Chapter 1

He was not at his best.

Remaining very still, Zuko took inventory of himself, concentrating on one sensation at a time. It wasn’t that he was injured: any major injury that took him out of action to heal could easily have proven fatal for him, as he could hardly afford to not be mobile and on his toes these past years. It wasn’t that he was exhausted: he had been bone-tired before, spending long hours pulling up rows of crops, and added weeks traveling in-between. It wasn’t that he was ravenous: he had definitely been much hungrier, with an intense gnawing sensation skittering up and down his abdomen.

There was simply a background soreness in his tall, lightly muscled frame that warned him, if he jumped too suddenly from his waiting place, the boulder on which he was perched flat-footed but crouched, his body would at the very least quietly complain, if it were not outspoken enough for outright rebellion. When he needed to, he would step down instead, then, to conserve energy.

No, he concluded, this wasn’t the lowest low he had hit. Not by _far._

And thus encouraged by this thought, the lean exile rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, resting his thighs on his lower legs. His stretched calves expressed their discontent under the shin guards connected up from his boots, but his knees thanked him for the relief.

He was wearing hippocowhide leather that extensively covered his torso and down his upper arms, leaving maneuverability for the lower, and the below-belt piece correspondingly passed over his thighs down to his knees. Only one bare spot on his side, a piece lost previously, but he intended to remedy that. The purloined armor was flexible and well-suited to his light-footed style. His height hadn’t been an issue in fitting, as men from this country could match or overstep him in that regard. It had only been difficult to ferret out because the locals preferred weightier and stockier protection over its modest design. With bindings at the wrists above his gloves to keep his long-sleeved cuffs from flapping around, a thin black outer layer both concealed and circulated enough air not to be stifling in the foggy, late spring night.

The darkness camouflaging him was his ally, here, as backwards as that may seem for a firebender. He craved the sun. He woke with it. He had mixed feelings about the longer days of the year: they stripped him of the extra hours of dark he could utilize while awake, but his body always hummed eagerly with the coming of summer. Even when he would force himself back into unconsciousness when the need struck, he would usually sleep much lighter when Agni was in the sky. It actually became very useful that way, when he was on the run, if he only relied on it for short periods, or sporadically. He couldn’t handle doing purely night shifts, even though coupled with his almost shoulder-length hair it helped obscure his appearance. That experiment, posing as an ordinary, if withdrawn, worker, had ended rather badly when he nearly sent an entire neighborhood up in smoke due to lack of proper sleep and wandering attention. Under blue and white oni mask, the pony-tailed man’s mouth now quirked in a half-smile, half-grimace. How that overseer had been convinced the impossibly fast die-down of the spread had nothing to do with suppressive bending, he still tried to figure out sometimes. Some people just believed what they wanted to. And Earth Kingdom denizens were rather stubborn and set in their ways. That particular unique instance it had helped rather than hindered him.

Wanted in the Fire Nation for reasons he only grew angry and sad to reflect on, and wanted in the Earth Kingdom for subjugating the Avatar, he constantly walked with a target on his head. This wasn’t all metaphorical, either. The darker patch surrounded by lighter scar tissue might as well have been a eye-drawing ringed circular archery practice dummy, aside from the irregular marquis-like shape. He found refuge in this new face. He didn’t need to add thievery and assault onto the list of motivations for people to hate the visage under the wooden substitute. Money itself was a risky business anyway when it came to haggling in public places, where every transaction left a trail of witnesses, and increased the chances of whistle-blowers. And game hunting could only get a man so far, nutritionally. Aside from vitamins needed from plants, when the human body doesn’t receive enough carbohydrates, it becomes sluggish due to the lack of readily available calories. Even if he hadn’t been educated in providing balanced diet to his Nation’s people, as one who had been trained from a very young age to be innately physically attuned to himself, and one who relied heavily on said attentiveness since he was seventeen, he had noticed deterioration before.

His small-eyed mask limited his vision considerably, especially peripherally. He didn’t firebend with it on, either, but this was a tradeoff he had made peace with. By separating out the identities and styles, he had improved both of them. This setup afforded yet another advantage by reserving his bending to sensing the heat in figures of enemies without the necessity of light. This wasn’t an original idea, by any means: the skull-style helmets worn by footsoldiers had prompted development of such supplemental methods of location and evasion long before he was born. When weather temperatures came within several degrees of body temperatures, though, it was nearly impossible to distinguish them. Fire itself was usually hundreds of degrees, and people fractionally warm in comparison, so it took years to hone to his current heightened accuracy. He had gotten an earlier start than most, when he was thirteen. He had retained most of the sight in his left eye, but it had certainly never hurt to have something else to lean on.

The repetitiveness of the setting, this daily coolness of the dark, spurred it on, throwing subjects into well-defined relief, and it worked at its very best when the cold months came. By now he was so used to externalizing this attention normally paid to gathering and releasing heat from himself, it was almost as if he _was_ another entity entirely. This split was why Fire Nation army hadn’t officially adopted or encouraged these timing advantages. Religious ideology concerning the daytime played another part. Firebending _attacks_ were slightly weaker at night and during the winter, too. So, the administration maximized actual offensive strength, and gave its soldiers faceplates that protected vulnerable eyes. Even their ominous design provided protection, of sorts. Intimidation and fear, Zuko had learned in his particular and perhaps peculiar journeys, were indeed very useful weapons above and beyond normal means.

This was a small village path, one he had traveled before. Dirt-bare ground gave way to a few stubborn, sparse copses of trees and shrubs, but otherwise only supported more of the same in the shape of ancient dried up riverbeds and small cliffs. The worst he might encounter here were some self-appointed vigilantes from a nearby settlement, easily defeated. He had done this dozens of times, even if not for a while since. He vowed to himself not to steal from places that had provided him with shelter, but he had few qualms anymore about re-visiting towns that had rejected the runaway ex-prince under the guise of a spirit. An angry, tribute-demanding spirit.

This worked out well, because unlike the Fire Nation, who presented burnt meat offerings to their gods, the Earth Kingdom, logically enough, considered anything that had been grown directly from the earth more sacred. Potatocorn, vegetables proper, and fruit adorned shrines, and sometimes appeared when the Blue Spirit was sighted. It hadn’t worked this day, because the communities he had expected to be on his route had packed up and left. Whether from rumor of an imminent invasion, or on the heels of a bad growing season, he couldn’t tell. But he had contingency plans. After a certain amount of time had passed, he began to prefer stealing from those who could afford to lose a few things, anyway. More and more often he had carried surplus food back to poorer families’ doorsteps, carving blessings in sand with his swords.

He had listened in on the stories that sprang up about him, occasionally. Even though the Phoenix King had been thwarted in his attempt to destroy the free parts of the Kingdom, the Bridge Between the Worlds had been dormant for a century, and was imprisoned since reappearing, so restless and finicky spirits had always been on the rise. The Blue Spirit was unleashed when the moon died, people said. He slipped through the tear between the worlds that opened up for the moments the white orb disappeared, becoming mortal. He was a descendant of La, the Ocean, a bastard child of unknown maternity. The exile had unwittingly nudged the myth along early on as “Lee” by once mentioning the nymph, the Painted Lady of the Fire Nation to someone. Gossipers took to it like a turtle-duck to swimming. Some nonsense about forbidden love and elemental opposites attracting. Never mind that they were both water-based spirits, regardless of geography. Were mix-breed waterbenders born in the areas around the Earth Kingdom Foggy Swamp any less waterbenders? On that note, he rather doubted that the pure-bred Water Tribe natives, either the ones in captivity or the scant few of them that were free, passed on the stories of an unfaithful Ocean with the same fervor as the Earth Kingdom and the colonies. The Blue Spirit, it went, used dao swords to represent the harmonious, balanced matrimony that he wished he were born into. He wandered, ill-content, sometimes benign, sometimes malignant, always longing for his father’s approval but never attaining it.

The first time he had heard _that_ last piece of talk, he had to extricate himself from his hiding place quickly to go _burn and destroy_ something.

He withdrew from his musing at the rickety sound of a walking-pace wagon, with four joined segments, a roofed one for a passenger and three open-air ones for goods. He had run ahead to pick out a place for the confrontation. He climbed down from his vantage point. The most obvious figures in his sense so far were the draft ostrich horses, whose temperature burned slightly hotter a than humans’. But they weren’t the most important part of the equation. This merchant had a mercenary guard, ten strong, to ward off bandits.

But Zuko _wasn’t_ most bandits.

He hadn’t survived this long by overestimating himself, even a little worn down.

And he hadn’t garnered awe, dread, and subsequent myths just because of a blue _mask_.

He was born of a line of powerful and agile warriors, and had been tempered, much like the steel of his swords, by the circumstances shaping his early adulthood. He was well into hitting the initial strides of his prime.

The man came to stand erect in the exact middle of the path.

As he was still concealed by mist, a few minutes slipped by before-

Reigns attached to metal bits hauled at the soft mouth parts behind the beaks of the ostrich horses, forcing them to a halt, and those previously marching alongside formed into a defensive semi-circle around their charge.

The chubby merchant himself poked his head out the window of the first carriage, blustering about stopping and lost time. Then he caught sight of the ‘spirit.’

The Avatar had been gone for decades. People had to deal with spirits some way or another in his absence. And even when he had been present, he couldn’t be called to every multifarious meeting between this world and the next. This standoff, with the reputation of the exile’s alter ego preceding him, would go one of two ways. Half of the time, people presented him offerings on their own. The other half, they disregarded respect and tried to fend him off.

“ _Well?_ I don’t _pay_ you to _stand_ there and _gawk!_ ”

Looked like tonight, it would be the latter.


	2. Escape?

Ten mercenaries.

As he dodged rocks, he deflected others using his broad blades as shields, careful not to strain his wrists with leverage on ones too large, and counted the nonbenders running at him. Four. He had assumed correctly that the three carrying hammers were earthbenders. That was usually the case, but not always: the implements were useful in themselves. The first three reached him at roughly the same time, all of them with spears. First sliding his swords down the shafts to direct them away, he then cut the metal heads of the pikes off, and carefully kept the bodies between himself and the benders, obscuring their aim. He struck the men in the head with the flats of his blades, and jumped onto the shoulder of the last, slamming him into the ground and all but flying towards the second group in the same continuous motion. Unprepared for this sudden closeness, several of the benders didn’t block his descending kicks.

He landed, weaving between them and adding more rapid bruising kicks to shins and ankles, and hilt-strikes to their ribs. Constant motion was critical to fighting earthbenders without the range afforded by his own bending.

In the confusion the two bulky ostrich-horses spooked, and tried to back up, scrabbling frantically in the dirt. Because their wide withers were harnessed to parallel wooden beams on either side, the entire structure resisted the movement. The joints between the three segments, designed to be pulled, not pushed, catty-cornered at odd diagonal angles as they plunged their heads up and down. The bipedal animals couldn’t rear as dragon-moose could, with pairs of front hooves flashing forward in the air, but beaks and single talons were plenty reason to remain clear.

Continuing his flurrying barrage, he was able to mostly ward off human attacks to the trunk of his body, enduring tags on his thighs and sides buffered by leather. He tracked warm limbs around him and how he had learned they affected the ground, whether in trails or aerial boulders. He had to use his eyes to literally watch his feet, as the very surface he stood on was pockmarked more and more as the benders drew from it. Even the swinging hammers couldn’t absorb his visual attention; their reach logged and accounted for, he leaned out of the way. Benders wielding them perhaps had a slight advantage at hand to hand, discounting those talented enough to effectively mold earthen gauntlets.

Four down, he deliberately drew his painted face up full-on and feinted menacingly at the remaining two, growling. The normally unyielding element-wielders faltered at the sight and sound, retracting as if stung. He used this pause to skirt along the side of the carriage. The merchant, by now withdrawn inside, squealed as steel noisily sliced deep gashes in the wood.

The two came to aid their employer, thinking him injured. Zuko meanwhile sheathed his swords to his back, jumped into one of the remaining carts, snatched a replacement section for his armor, and scooped up two short-sleeved shirts and as many packages of bread and carrotyams as he could carry in a satchel he had tucked between his outer shirt and inner belt.

Then, with the same ghost-like swiftness, he beat a hasty retreat.

There was a time when many of those he struck down would never recount their encounter with the Blue Spirit, destined for the Next World themselves. There was a time, too, when he would have taken satisfaction, if mute and subdued, in his conquest, despite his own minor injuries berating the man like a hoghenpecked husband with every jarring impact of his feet.

It still sometimes gave him a little rush to defeat Earth Kingdom soldiers, to stun and daze them so thoroughly, but this night, he found himself with the reaction of, simply glad to have it over with.

A tremor in the ground informed him that his jaunt _wasn’t_ over just yet. The last two guards must be following him. Unusually tenacious for appointed hires. He kept his pace, using his bending sense to look behind him. This boy, different from the other two figures, was skating across the earth with a speed enhanced by a wave of ground. Even if he had the option of firebending, Zuko couldn’t outrun this technique. He had never had the humility to ask his sister the finer points of how to pyroplane, creating a hair’s breadth of heated, almost frictionless air between the feet and the ground, and using hand flames to propel yourself forward. The man groaned inwardly. He hated fighting kids. Not least of all because it reminded him of his own childhood. But then, vigilantes were often young and naïve.

He banked shallowly around one rock outcropping, abandoning his relatively clear path. Maybe the boy, or teen would give up and just go home if he couldn’t find the perpetrator. Tossing a coin, youthful vigor was just as likely to give way to immature frustration. Zuko took a sharper turn of the same bent down a narrow crevasse. At the other side he stopped, and with an accustomed air, hung back in shadow and breathed as quietly as humanly possible. He actually ended up a little closer to the boy, but he had no way of knowing that-

The boy, in his fire-sense, changed direction.

This time, the man _shouted in indignation_ inwardly.

It was a guess, but a good one. The earthbender was still a good ways away and moving. He set down his spoils, and drew his swords again, muffling the sliding sound with his gloves by habit. He wasn’t going to spend all night playing hide and seek. If the kid was unlucky enough to get close, he was going to knock him out cold and be done with it. Poised for the second ambush of the night, he waited.

The walls _shifted_ -

He rocketed out of his would-be tomb on pure instinct, abandoning the satchel to its fate-

Zuko caught enough visual detail with the dual impediments of darkness and eyeholes to see shortly cropped hair. He didn’t have time to reflect on the inordinate level of skill, or the appearance of his opponent, though. He circled the boy quickly so he couldn’t use his gathered momentum and wave to plaster him up against the now-continuous wall.

The boy must not have anticipated a single supposed nonbender running proactively and audaciously up a still-churning hill of earth underfoot, because he braked too late to keep Zuko from approaching diagonally from behind. Zuko, likewise, didn’t quite anticipate the retaliating column without the boy even turning his head, and caught a glancing blow to his chest. In another daring move he dug one blade into the newly formed feature, swinging free-form, both shins hitting the small of the earthbender’s back. It should have knocked him clean off his artificially-raised perch, but he only yielded about another body’s width. The solidness was much greater than the small figure let on: he shouldn’t weigh _that_ much!

As Zuko landed unevenly on his smarting feet on the broken up earth, thankfully without breaking an ankle from either impact, he labeled two sources for the miscalculation: why the _heck_ did this kid have on _full-body armor?_! He must have sunk his feet into the ground to anchor himself, too. That kind of reaction was **not** amateur.

“Oh- you’re going- to regret that- _scumbag!_ ”

So shocked by the high-pitched and utterly feminine voice, he totally missed dodging the mounds of earth she hurled at him between words. He tumbled roughly down the incline, but somehow managed to scramble to standing again. Now battered and tired even more, he was outraged, plain and simple. A relatively smooth getaway, spoiled by a _girl_ no less! He would have to subsist off of people’s goodwill for at least _two weeks_ before he was back in form to safely attempt another heist like this!

He loped several paces and turned around, literally needing the few seconds to fight back the red gathering at the edges of his vision.

His abused muscles were now egging him on to revenge, to forget fleeing completely. He had learned not to allow his potent temper run away with him, though. That landed him in tight spots, or led to consequences he didn’t intend to incur anymore.

“What’s the matter, can’t stand up to the big bad _bender_ again?” She sent a wave after him. “You didn’t seem to have any trouble with the others!”

He dodged and circled more, keeping her in sight, but didn’t charge. That question didn’t sound like she was addressing a ‘spirit.’ Did that mean she thought he was an ordinary person, posing?

“ _Come on_ , sniveling harlot, _fight_ me!”

That was good as a confirmation. More anger flooded him at the crass female epithet and he leaned forward unconsciously, but he still kept his wits. He hadn’t made it this far in his hard-knock life by flying off the handle.

When he still didn’t retaliate, the earthbender radiated three fissures in about the same direction. His. If she thought this approach would put him off center, he thought vehemently, she was sorely mistaken. With a nimbleness that didn’t seem to match up precisely with his lanky stature, he had navigated countless earth pitfalls. Earthbenders could only “zip” up the ground so quickly. He promptly found footholds in the jagged walls to close the distance-

Her element seized one of his feet using a degree of fine-tuned control that he had only a few times encountered before and the wall took his knee like quicksand. Again he dug his swords into the horizontal part of the surface for leverage to haul himself out before the hardening took full effect-

But then a brown form snared his entire right blade and fist with the same accuracy. Mentally he stubbornly warded off pictures of being buried alive, and jammed the hilt of his free sword into the base to loosen it.

But he only slipped further into the earth. He was pretty badly _winded_ by now- without proper _air_ his own element _wouldn’t_ do much _good_ -

She stopped sinking him. His mind’s befuddlement at this development was pitted against his still-panicking body.

Oh, he was hopelessly caught, sunk past the torso, but he had clearly ceased his downward plunge, with one free arm. Had she not intended to squash him flat between the two walls, before?

He hastily put aside these pointless questions. He tried not to fume, or let the panic haze his judgment or tamper with his lungs’ operation more. Maybe if he could slow his breathing, he could break out. If she took off his mask, though, that was a condemnation far worse than his minor misdeed today-

Oh.

Of _course._ That’s why he wasn’t sucking earth right now.

He had _never_ been caught as the Blue Spirit before.

But he had to wait to see what she would do. If she was going to turn him into authorities, he’d use the between time to come up with something. He wasn’t buried yet, after all. He was going to be fine, he soothed to his babbling, shot nerves. Just concentrate. Pay attention. And above all, _breathe._

This didn’t stop him from glaring as she broke her stance, crossed her arms, and smirked. “You can handle whoever those bumbling idiots are but I guess you’re just no _match_ for a blind woman.”

_Blind?_

As she strode lazily towards him, it all fell into place. They must have the capacity to develop a similar sense to his. He’d never _heard_ of it, but that didn’t make any difference. She hadn’t _guessed_ where he was: she _knew_. She had disregarded both the fork he took _and_ his appearance. He hadn’t gotten a good look at _her_ face, either. She had approached too quickly to have interrogated any of the men about their skirmish. The implications clamored for his attention. All this time he could have been using firebending, and it wouldn’t _matter!_ She couldn’t associate the mask with the bending, _and_ she couldn’t identify his easily recognizable face, as she couldn’t _see_ at all. He inhaled sharply.

Standing four or five feet away, she said, “Realized who you’re dealing with, huh? Don’t choke up on me, now. I like it better when the worms caught in the snaptrap get pissed.”

Her boorish words produced exactly that reaction. “You _like_ it better? What is this, a _game!?_ ” he demanded.

“That’s more like it.” Coming no closer, she instead looked thoughtful for a moment. “Hm.”

He pulled and lifted at the chin of the Blue Spirit and put it aside, sword still in hand, to see clearly.  
She had wide, round cheeks and all her other features were quite petite in comparison. Her narrow, slanted eyes gave very little away, but didn’t they seem to be pointed roughly at the top of his head?

“Chasing down a lowlife thief? Yep, indeedy. _That’s_ a game,” she concluded. She clapped another large finger of earth around his left hand. Then she bent her fingers midair, and the cuffs left just enough wiggle room for his fingers to open. “Drop your toys, now, and I’ll let your feet go. And _maybe_ I won’t beat you to a pulp, if you play real _nicely._ ”

He had a strong urge to breathe fire over at her. Her condescending, pleased-with-herself attitude was disgusting. But that wasn’t a card he should play, not yet, he thought, as he relinquished his grip. Let her _think_ she had disarmed him. If he could keep the element of surprise, by keeping his element a surprise, the more likely this would work. He tried to read the overly sunny inflection of the words. Was she really _kidding around?_ She had referred to herself an adult, but she sure didn’t _act_ like it.

She maneuvered his hands behind his back, and began to raise him up out of the sinkhole she had created, aiming to drop him into a kneeling position.

Meanwhile he studied her. She was very robust for a girl, one contribution to the mistaken gender. He wondered about her actual age, which he had placed at mid teens. His automatic extra sense corrected the observation, now that she was standing comparatively still. To anyone who couldn’t pick up the heat signature of the curves, her figure was hidden under baggy clothes and thickly reinforced plating-

He realized what he was doing with a self-conscious twinge and withdrew his unintentional scrutiny. He concentrated on his eyes. Her face was fairly round, true, and her nose tiny, but he had doubts as to whether that was youth or just the natural structure. Earth Kingdom people all looked so different. Taking in the deep green, he was pretty sure the plating was army-grade, though sloppily arranged. Her sleeveless shirt didn’t match her pants. A reject soldier, then? She had long wrist gauntlets covering up to her elbows. Her hands sported fingerless gloves that were padded at the knuckles. None of these hues of greens matched, either.

“Get up.”

She pointed in a direction opposite the wagon and the defeated guard as he began to stand awkwardly. She must mean to turn him in at a town, then. “Start walking, Skippy.”

He snorted in disbelief at the address, and in response to the contempt the earthbender abruptly jerked up a knee in a motion as if-

The earth right in front of him corresponded by slamming hard enough into his solar plexus for him to double over despite his own padding. Precious fire-sustaining breath lost again, he cursed loudly in his head.

“Not many have landed a hit on me in one-on-one,” she spat snidely. “I _guess_ you should be _honored._ Don’t think it’s going to get earn you any special treatment.”

Not even hearing her, he was wrapped up in fantasizing about making an _exception_ to his no-kill rule.

Simultaneously he realized that he was exhuming a few sputtering and feeble sparks he had wanted to unleash earlier, and that she _didn’t_ realize it. No reaction.

She kicked, and earth impacted the back of his knees. “Now. I said, _walk_.”

He did so. But he would turn this situation around. Breathing as deeply as he could, he waited for the ache to recede from his diaphragm some. He suffused his bending sense back to its usual range and accuracy. Decency be hanged. None of the world saw him as a gentlemen, not even his own homeland anymore. Why should he contradict the perception?

She was following about six feet behind. He tested the earthen cuffs, subtly twisting his wrists. They were very tight, and prevented the movement almost completely. He expected as much, given her control demonstrated before, but also as expected, a few grains came loose. For ease and immediacy, earthbenders had to manipulate tougher soil and dirt into custom shapes, rather than actual stone or rock. He had come upon this as a trick before: if he got away, a short soak in a stream would let him break up the compacted earth. He could shatter them with firebending, he revised. That often resulted in heated pieces flying everywhere and damage to himself as well- was that the way he should announce his bending, or should he go for a kick first? The entire oddity of his predicament still had him reeling a bit. The few times he had been caught, his being alive was unintentional on his captors’ part. And he had never been overwhelmed by one fighter, whether using bending or only darkness, swords, and espionage-

Then, two and two came together.

Blind earthbender.

Young female.

If she was in her early twenties . . . !?

Holy Koh.

Holy. _Crawling. **Koh.**_

The Scourge.

The Scourge, a fearsome leader that had shaped up to be one of the premier hubs of resistance against the post-comet Fire Nation. After Ba Sing Se had fallen, Omashu and later Gaoling became the main destinations for refugees. He wasn’t too near Gaoling because it kept tight records of immigrants. Just as tight as the captured Capitol did.

She was a legend in her own right, despite her age, but he had only heard her full, un-shortened nickname once before. The Sightless Scourge.

No, surely this ill-mannered, unprofessional, and shabby girl wasn’t an acclaimed general. And the administrator of an entrenched city wouldn’t be by herself running after a petty criminal. He shook himself figuratively. She was a wannabe, or something. Blindness wasn’t _that_ rare.

He had regained his breath now. He needed to distract her. “Maybe if you bit back on that tongue of yours, the Scourge would take you as an apprentice.”

She actually stopped in reaction to the statement. Maybe she had studied under the general, and got kicked out for her abrasiveness. It would serve her right.

Momentarily indecisive about this opportunity, he still pretended like he hadn’t sensed or notice her stop, and went a few paces without her. He surreptitiously made the steps come sideways away from her as well.

As he moved, the voice said, “It’d be hard for me to take myself as a pupil. I know everything I know, see. That’d be a pretty dull lesson.”

He was about to turn back, in mock surprise, but it morphed into real surprise. He spluttered out automatically in consternation, “You? You can’t be-”

She grinned predatorily.

The woman catapulted herself with an earthbending pillar and landed a bit forward with a titanic thump. The wide resulting crater zoomed well past where he was, forcing him to bend his knees to adjust to avoid falling forward. The ground reordered itself back to flat, and he was presented again with her exact height, barely reaching the middle of his chest. But now her face directed up at him in malevolent triumph called to mind a pygmy puma, compact and stocky, but fierce. “You’re nauseatingly slow on the uptake.”

He couldn’t contain his bewilderment. “What- what is the Scourge doing out here, alone?”

“That’s none of your vulture-beeswax, is it? Move along,” she scuffed her foot and an inverted incline caused him to backpedal clumsily, “or I might have to break that pretty little jaw of yours.”

He muttered snarkily and secretly to himself while he corrected his posture once again, “Like you would know whether it was ‘pretty.’”

Wham.

He managed to tuck his head in a flinch just enough to prevent the rock from hitting his face. He stumbled several steps yet again after taking the heavy blow. If the pain throbbing under his shoulder guard was any indication, true to her word, the force might have displaced teeth.

He almost fell to a knee, but with balance developed by endless training and fighting he regained his footing and automatically started to fall into a defensive stance, to face her with his right side. By Agni, what had possessed him to say that aloud? Spending too much time alone, probably. Discarding the fact that she shouldn’t have overheard the insult, if she was mentally compromised, and continued to attack recklessly, this was the opening he needed-

“You sneaky ratviper! _You’re a firebender!”_

Now she knew? How-!

Somehow he had lost his advantage. But, such was life. _His_ life, anyway.

She was already dipped low, and he only had one second more to collect himself before she shoved a spiking trail of earth at him at the initial exclamation. He pivoted out of the way, not risking jumping for fear of missing his landing. That was his preferred method of avoiding, but he couldn’t take that chance without his arms for stabilization. He retaliated with all the power he could muster in a foot sweep, then took off. The restraining element on his arms turned his own against him as heat sank through his shirt and gloves and minor burns pricked for heating the cuffs. With a bit more bending and a powerful yank he was free.

But his strength and endurance had been waning all along. Even though he dodged one move with a leap, with the second she took out his feet again. He landed hard on his back, his short-lived freedom snatched away as she pinned him by replacement and additional shackles over his shins. He got an upside-down view of her as the ground around swallowed him again.

But this time, her small lips curled in a murderous sneer, and he knew that the Earth general, childish or not, now _**did**_ intend to crush him, right here, right now.


	3. Control

The former prince would be just another wasted life of many, practically nameless in the backwaters of nowhere. He wouldn’t even be recorded on a piece of parchment of those fallen in duty. Bounty hunters would be disappointed. That was, if they ever even found out. Other than that, his existence would pass without notice, wouldn’t it?

“Please-”

The supplicating word forced its way out of his mouth, and instantly he hated himself.

She paused. With dark amusement and self-satisfaction, she declared, “ _ What? _ Are you going to  _ beg  _ to me, cowardly smoke-stack?” 

He clenched his teeth to push back the wounded pride that  _ demanded  _ a retort, and kept silent. No, he was  _ not _ going to plead. But he wasn’t going to provoke her, either. 

In a voice much too low and ominous for her relatively gentle appearance, the general said, “Not long ago I would have snuffed you without a second thought,  _ regardless. _ ” An unreadable expression crossed her face, and the enjoyment left. “So, let’s hear it then. What do you have to  _ say _ to me? Nothing  _ worthwhile _ , I bet.” 

His heart thumped in his throat. Whether it was from anger, fear, loneliness, or some unbalanced combination of the three, he wasn’t trying to figure it out. 

“I haven’t-”

“Deep breaths first,” she cut him off. The painful constriction let up enough for him to cease feeling like a ripe orangegrape ready to burst. “Can’t have anybody all worked up too much when I’m asking questions. It interferes.”

He had heard of her ability to somehow tell when people were lying. Maybe there had been a vague reason Koh had come to mind before, when he thought of the Scourge. People said, that you must master  _ showing  _ your emotions to face the facestealer. But to face the judgment of the earthbender, you must master the emotions themselves. He figured that had been just over-exaggerated rumors. Then again, stories of her prowess certainly had  _ not _ been over-exaggerated. She could do things to earth whole body heights away from herself that most benders could only accomplish within a step’s radius, with no distraction, and made it look laughably easy. All this time, she hadn’t come within anywhere near normal striking distance. Even as he thought this, she executed a fairly complicated set of gestures that put him at a shallower angle, though still immersed to his shoulders. He rested his head back on the ground with the inverted sight and followed her instructions, taking full advantage of the admittedly strange respite.

He was able to expand his chest since his front was at least partially uncovered. Closing his eyes, he focused on his breath, as he did with his firebending training, sinking into the familiarity with his body. He lost himself, taking note of and then erasing everything he heard from the grasshopper-moth chirps to the distant jingling of reins and nervous nickering of the ostrich-horses. The still present pressure on his muscles interrupted, imitating a chatty housewife, but he blocked that out with a few more couplings of air in and out.

Then he spoke steadily. “I haven’t raised a hand against the Kingdom for a long time. I don’t mean any harm. Not any more.”

“You may  _ believe _ that. Doesn’t mean it’s the truth.” So apparently she hadn’t sensed any deception? However that worked. “Those men you left back there will have a very  _ different _ opinion.”

“They’ll walk away.” He reviewed the fight to himself briefly. “Three of them might be limping for a while. Two have some broken ribs. If I wanted them dead, they  _ would _ be,” he said in a very intentional monotone. “I haven’t used lethal force for two years.” He could tick off the exact number of months and days as well. “And I don’t ever intend to use it again. I’ve had enough.  _ Enough. _ ” Vehemence built up and crescendoed in the last word, and he paused, wondering if he needed to keep at bay the conviction that had evolved out of the past of both the Blue Spirit and his human host. He decided to go the safe route and relaxed the tension gathering inside him, pushing back vivid memories that threatened to spill into his mind. “I’ve had jobs, but . . .” 

“Not too good at hiding your  _ curse _ , are you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, feeling how his left eyelid constricted more than the other around its socket. It wasn’t just  _ difficult _ to hide; it was impossible. All too familiar anguish whispered to him, the constant companion where no one else was.

“Enlai said it’s hard to go without it,” she said passively and distantly to herself. “Not like earth.”

So focused on his burn scar, it took him a few seconds to catch up on what she meant.

He opened his eyes. She was talking about his  _ bending _ . It  _ was  _ difficult to keep the heat in, months on end, with no substantial and proper outlet. The earlier times he did find stable enough residences, he would have to find places to release the pent up energy, or he would get even more irritable and restless than he already was. This had resulted in his being fired, if the moods persisted, or hunted, if he was discovered bending his all-too-flashy element. A blessed few instances he had found people willing to overlook what he was, but after neighbors and roaming hitmen were factored in, he had left behind trying to establish an ordinary life.

The question had occurred to him before- were earthbenders as subject to the same drives? If he was soothed by a lighted hearth, but they had constant and direct contact through their bare feet-

Resentment swelled. Of  _ course _ , his life wasn’t difficult  _ enough _ . Bending _ itself _ had to be  _ organized against him, too. _

A morbid curiosity was piqued, though. How did she know this, about fire? He had heard horror stories about being kept underground for years away from the sun, a favorite method of theirs to torment captured firebenders, but were there ways to forcefully  _ deny _ them from bending? He tried not to imagine going without the necessary exercise. From what he had gathered, earthbenders were kept out on the ocean for years. But he didn’t know the details of those effects, either.

Was Enlai a prisonmaster of hers? And his first quandary was still unanswered. “How did you know I was a firebender?”

“I was halfway to placing your accent. It’s mixed up with a lot of different areas-” 

His voice had undeniably changed. To add a second insult to injury and the whim-based command to find the then-disappeared Avatar when he was banished, his father had assigned him a crew consisting of colony-raised sailors. The royal inflections of his youth had inevitably been butchered during those three years. Add to that the time he had spent traversing the Earth Kingdom-

“-then it clicked when you used that wide, shallow footing. Hmph. Dis- _ grace- _ ful. Maybe one day you’ll all wise up and use a  _ real, _ deep stance.”

He could move on a  _ dime _ by shifting his weight to either foot. Of course someone whose initial training consisted of always staying in place and squatting like a hogmonkey wouldn’t understand that, he grumbled inwardly, riled by her insult to his style. “Who is Enl-”

“ _ I’m _ asking the questions here,” she overrode him tetchily. “So you defected? When?”

Not in the way she probably meant. Not during active duty, anyway. But in effect, it was the same, wasn’t it? Had she asked how long he had served, or why he left, that would have been much trickier.

“Yes. Almost a year after the comet.” 

Memories snuck in using pleasure for access. The indolent, lazy days he had spent at the palace, enjoying five course meals, sleeping on silk, kissing Mai . . . But then they took a more painful turn. All this had gone on while good soldiers sacrificed themselves across the sea, ones he had once spoken out for, ones he had taken this  _ mark _ for-

Breathe.

How had she looked when she discovered his absence?

Breathe.

Breathe.

She would be married now, with her children growing up alongside their uncle, her much younger brother-

_ Breathe. _

_ Breathe. _

_ Breathe. _

He was beginning to lose some feeling in his fingers and feet, and the places she had hit were aching badly. Thus far he had just taken it, but now he almost gave a sigh of pain and tried to shift a bit. But then he stopped. 

This, he berated, was not even _ scratching the surface _ of the pain he was in very real danger of landing in. Suddenly he hated himself even more for stopping her. If he lived  _ now _ , the outcome was  _ most _ likely continuous,  _ calculated _ pain.

Besides, he would  _ not  _ squirm like a fish on a hook.

As if she could indeed tell when he was ready for another question, she waited until he had muzzled the upswing in internal activity.

He knew what it would be.

“Are you loyal?”

Though this might seem redundant, there were two extremely important understandings that went with it.

The first was- and this had been partially covered already- he wasn’t a mercenary. He would not fight for her.

The second was: he wouldn’t forfeit any military information voluntarily. 

He hadn’t even left on behalf of the Earth Kingdom. He had his own motivations.

But now? 

He wouldn’t go back, if given the second chance. 

He was as far from a footsoldier as anyone could get. As far from  _ blameless _ as anyone could get. But- “I wish . . . I had had enough influence then, to change things. From the inside. Not just because of this-” he flexed and unflexed his arms to indicate his current confinement.

But he couldn’t be a full, active traitor.

His next breaths were full of apprehension. 

She shifted a foot and seemed to catch on to his train of thought, as her voice lowered seriously again. “I’m going to take that as a ‘Yes _.’ _ ”

This time he couldn’t prevent all the rest of the guilt that he had locked away from surging back to the surface full force. Ba Sing Se had only capitulated after he and Azula had made very clear that they wouldn’t leave until every last line of defense was broken. They may have differed on opinions of how to proceed with civilians, but-

Right now, vulnerable and with fear as a supplement, he couldn’t force the regret for anything back down under his usual veneer he had worked to build up, and his lungfuls grew shallow as the complicated and diverse sources of feelings collectively overcame him. 

She stood over him, frowning, with her ‘gaze’ intently focused somewhere on his chest. 

He turned his head away as much as he was able, once suppressed shame burning in his face. She had every reason to just  _ mangle _ that spot she was ‘looking’ at-

He resolutely reigned in his mind at that. Visions of his demise had happened often enough, consciously, and even in dreams and nightmares, but he hadn’t given up. For whatever reason, he had always stubbornly plowed ahead. It may be an utterly miserable existence most of the time, but it was  _ his. _

“Any intel you might have is probably outdated . . .”

Relieved air whoosed across his teeth.

Her head tilted upwards, and she thrust her thumbs into her belt. 

“So what am I going to  _ do _ with you, Smokestack?” She now seemed very distracted again, as she had when she had mentioned Enlai, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. He remembered then she hadn’t answered about the name. But why should she tell him anything anyway? 

“You should at least spend some time in the slammer . . . ”

_ She  _ had the authority to sentence him, if indeed she really was sparing him. That was more than he could ask for from anyone. The prospect of being able to sleep in one place, even if imprisoned-

Abruptly his self-worth hit him with blunt and forceful reprimand for even considering such an idea, and his mood sank to new depths.

She pursed her lips and continued in the same distracted manner, “Earth below, that’s  _ just  _ what I need right now, my merry band of idiots clamoring for your head while I’m trying to fight a gods-forsaken  _ war. _ But if I handed you over to any other higher-ups, you might be on your way to the chopping block anyway. You got any obvious Fire Nation traits?”

The irony was so thick he practically choked on it, elbows jerking in their place. Fire Nation traits? Yellow eyes. Sharp chin. Strong cheekbones. Straight nose.

Oh, and by the way. Blatantly obvious disfiguring red curse. 

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

All he said was a surly, “In case you didn’t ‘catch’ it, that was also a ‘Yes.’” 

Still upside-down to him, she let out a small snort, but her mouth flattened dutifully before it had a chance to curve towards her nose too much.

_When_ was the last time he had made someone _laugh_ , he thought blankly.

Could this night possibly get  _ any _ weirder?

“Tell you what. Say you’ll look for honest work again, and I’ll let you go.”

_ Definitely _ just got  _ ten times _ weirder-

Had he  _ heard _ her correctly?

Find work-

Find  _ work? _

That was what he had done _ for years straight! _ And look where it  _ got  _ him! The stupid little  _ shrew _ -dog didn’t  _ know- _ she expected him to _ just blend back into- _

He wearily cut off the rant beginning in his mind. It wasn’t worth it. “ . . . All right,” he said begrudgingly.

“You don’t  _ mean  _ that.” The sightless eyes for which she was named furrowed.

_ Calm.  _ Calm- Calm. 

**Breathe.**

“You have my solemn word.”

After a significantly long pause, she brought her hands together and parted them again. He was lifted and his restraints retracted without so much as a  _ trace _ left. How in these two worlds did they  _ do  _ that?

Her eyes, though, hadn’t changed as she started away. “I probably won’t ever catch you again. But don’t count on my being forgiving a second time around.” 

Don’t count on my submitting, either, he agreed privately. On his word, he would try a few things. Plans already began forming. But he couldn’t promise this wouldn’t happen again. Nothing of the sort.

He rubbed his wrists, rotated his ankles, and stamped his feet gingerly, thinking over the past few minutes.

When she had reached several yards, he whispered to the ground, “She said my  _ firebending _ was a curse.” The irony here was striking as well. Had his bending remained concealed, she probably would have him at the mercy of his targets. “But it seems to have saved me, here.” 

She halted.

He went rigid. She had  _ heard _ him again! Even  _ that  _ far away? Had he just  _ blundered _ and  _ spit _ on her leniency?

He took steps back, unsteadily; his still-tingling legs felt shaky after their ordeal. 

They both stood there like that, but still straightened, she hadn’t made a move. The worn down man’s heartbeat was rising well past its proper place again as he prepared to bolt, and all his muscles keyed up, urging him on. But he needed every second she spent to decide to recover his bloodflow and motor function.

The corner of her small mouth that turned into view was tugged upwards. “Man, do I have you  _ cowed _ , Smoky.”

Anger flooded him again. Impulse now operating in reverse, it took _every ounce_ of self-control he _owned_ to not act on his desire to _wipe that_ _smug look_ _off her face._

With  _ fire. _

She resumed her steps.

 


End file.
